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At Fitchburg nursing home 90-year-old Donald Chalifoux is more than a volunteer

By Alana Melanson, amelanson@sentinelandenterprise.com

Updated:
11/04/2012 08:05:47 AM EST

FITCHBURG -- Donald Chalifoux started Wednesday as he's started nearly every morning for the last 14 years.

He walked into The Highlands nursing home just after 7 a.m., gave front desk receptionist Barbara Armstrong a big smile and hello, and went to the fourth floor to find out where he was needed. He wheeled the elderly patients around to different activities, keeping them company and sharing laughs along the way and jokes with staff members.

At lunch time, he helped to wheel patients to their favorite spots in the dining room and, with a smile, handed out each tray to eagerly awaiting friendly faces he's known for years.

At 90, Chalifoux would seem the perfect candidate to live at The Highlands -- but he's a volunteer.

Chalifoux became a regular when the deteriorating health of his wife of 66 years, Anita, necessitated her move to the nursing home on July 31, 1998. Toward the end of her life, she was blind and had fallen into the depths of end-stage Alzheimer's.

"Most people would say to him, 'Why do you come every day? It's not like she would know,'" said Catherine Jeremie, fourth floor unit manager.

"I know I was there," Chalifoux said.

"He was there with her at her bedside, holding her hand. It didn't matter if she didn't know if he was there or not," Jeremie said. "He lost her years ago, but he didn't leave her side, right to the end."

Anita Chalifoux was non-verbal the entire time Jeremie knew her, so her husband would regale staff with stories so they could get to know her as a person, and not just a patient.

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"She was a great lady," Chalifoux said. "She was hard. She was the type of woman, you step on her toes once, that was it, you were gone."

She was also a cook and baker for Fitchburg Public Schools, he said, spending most of her working years at Reingold Elementary School. She was the only woman Chalifoux ever dated. They met in grammar school. The only time he ever spent away from her was the two years he served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge and other high-profile battles, returning at the end of 1945. He spent a brief time with his mother in Holyoke, but Anita, being a Fitchburg girl through and through, wanted nothing to do with his original hometown (Chalifoux moved to Fitchburg in fourth grade), he said, so he returned to Fitchburg.

They married in 1946 and raised two children, Wayne and Sandra, living on Clarendon Street.

Anita Chalifoux passed away on Aug. 24, less than two weeks after her 89th birthday.

"When she passed away, we honestly didn't know what he would do or what we would do without him," said Highlands Medical Director Dr. Kimberly Ebb, who cared for his wife the last 11 years of her life. "A few days went by, and then he came back. We, of course, welcomed him with open arms, and he's just a very precious part of our family."

"I used to feed my wife breakfast and lunch, but now I feed some of the other patients in here," Chalifoux said. "It makes me feel good. It's a blessing."

He now lives with his daughter, Sandra Thomas, in Ashburnham, and sees the five to six hours he spends daily at The Highlands as a way to keep busy, and he enjoys interacting with the patients, their families, the doctors and the nurses.

"I'm involved with the people," Chalifoux said. "It's just like I'm their family."

"He cheers me up, same as he does with everybody in here," said Armstrong.

On occasion, he even sings to the patients, Jeremie said.

"I sing happy birthday to them when they have their birthdays," Chalifoux said.

"He's kind of like our little bit of everything. He helps with the trays, he cleans up, he moves the residents out of the dining room," said fourth-floor nurse Carol Lashua. "He's our little social butterfly."

"There's not a thing he wouldn't help the girls with," said resident Terry Brown, 77, originally from Gardner.

Brown has been at The Highlands for almost 16 years since having a stroke that paralyzed the left side of her body, and has known Chalifoux the entire time he's been there.

"He's a good friend. He's just a good-hearted person," she said.

"We look forward to him coming in, because he's part of us," said resident Betty Cantin.

On the rare occasions when he doesn't come in, residents ask where he is, according to Phyllis Richard, activities director.

"If he doesn't come in, they find out, 'Where is he today? How come he's not here?'" she said.

Chalifoux himself has been a patient at The Highlands, for a few months when he fractured his hip awhile back. He was close to death at one point, he said, but he pulled though and is quite healthy today.

"We honestly don't know what we'd do without him," Ebb said "He's just become part of the family here."

The staff went to his wife's funeral in August, and celebrated his 90th birthday Sept. 6 at Sean Patrick's Restaurant in Lunenburg. Nurse Diane Erdman baked him 90 cupcakes for the occasion, Jeremie said.

"And Donald being Donald, he wheeled them through the building, handing them out to everyone," she said with a smile.

"The best part about Don is his sense of humor and his outlook," said Bill St. Germain, 71, Fitchburg, a longtime friend of Chalifoux's who visits his friend Winnie at The Highlands every day.

St. Germain first met Chalifoux at the St. Joseph School in the 1950s, when he was a student and member of the St. Joseph Cadets drum and bugle corps, and Chalifoux was a drum instructor.

"He keeps me going," St. Germain said.

Chalifoux is proud of the three-quarters of his life he says he spent involved with various drum and bugle corps throughout New England, first as a member, then an instructor, and later a judge. Chalifoux was an original founding member of the Kingsmen, Fitchburg's well-known drum and bugle corps, which won a national championship in Boston in 1955.

"For me, it's just so rewarding to see him still being an active member of the community, and that seniors like Donald and seniors of all ages have something valuable to contribute," said The Highlands Admissions Director MaryAnn Melanson.

If you would like to volunteer at The Highlands, contact Activities Director Phyllis Richard at 978-353-7206. All volunteers must undergo extensive background, CORI and sex offender checks, and some training or certification may be necessary depending on the area of interest or need for the volunteer.

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